Ahhh the exclamation marks! :) Can't hide my excitement for being back home! Arrived safely in Greece about a week ago. Kostas and Tony stayed behind but time flies fast and soon Kostas will join me too. So let me give you a summary that will be accompanied by some pictures of what I did the last week. The first thing, of course, is to visit friends and family that I had not seen for a year. And since Greeks tend to have large families and lots of friends that took some time. Then, as the whole world probably knows, the subject of the referendum vote came up and my mother wanted to vote as I of course so we travelled to my mother's village in Thessaly so she could vote. Greeks usually vote where they were born, unless you choose to transfer your rights to where you live, but most of us we use voting as an excuse to visit our birthplaces so we took the trip to Rodia (my mother's village). The actual name means pomegranate and the village was famous for the pomegranate trees that used to grow e v e r y w h e r e! It lies on the foothills of Mount Olympus and agriculture is the main source of income for people there. On the way there we stopped by Tempi valley so my mother can pay her respect on St Paraskevi. The little church lies in the valley and Pinios river flows in the valley. There is a spring there called Afroditi spring where there were lots of tourists that were trying to drink some of the water. Legend has it that if you drink the water you become as beautiful as the ancient Greek goddess Afroditi. I have some doubts on that but it's ok :)

At the village we visited friends and family and of course we went to the cemetery where my grandparents lie. On the little church there there is a nest from storks. It has been there ever since I can remember and what did I know? the family of storks were there again! Maybe it is the peace and quiet that keeps them coming back every year. It brought back lots of memories...

We also took a trip up on Mount Olympus and we stopped by old Panteleimon village where I took a picture of the magnificent scenery from the top. Truly amazing! So...no cooking these days but our trip in Greece has started and soon enough you will be having recipes and pictures of our culinary journey!

For now you can try some of our old recipes and enjoy the scenery in Greece :)

Greek cuisine has a long tradition and its flavors change with the season and its geography. Greek cookery, historically a forerunner of Western cuisine, spread its culinary influence - via ancient Rome - throughout Europe and beyond. It has influences from the different people's cuisine the Greeks have interacted with over the centuries, as evidenced by several types of sweets and cooked foods.

It was Archestratos in 320 B.C. who wrote the first cookbook in history. Greece has a culinary tradition of some 4,000 years.Ancient Greek cuisine was characterized by its frugality and was founded on the "Mediterranean triad": wheat, olive oil, and wine, with meat being rarely eaten and fish being more common. This trend in Greek diet continued in Roman and Ottoman times and changed only fairly recently when technological progress has made meat more available. Wine and olive oil have always been a central part of it and the spread of grapes and olive trees in the Mediterranean and further afield is correlated with Greek colonization.